HIST 333 - The Question of Palestine and Israel: A Dialogical Approach

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

(Same as JWST 333 and RELI 333) What does it take to live and learn in a community of people who disagree on core values? On U.S. campuses, the question of Palestine and Israel has acutely exposed such fundamental disagreements. This seminar pursues two parallel aims: First, we engage in deep study of the contested history of Israel and Palestine since the end of the 19th century, and second, we consider the resonances of this history and present on U.S. campuses, and investigate what interpretive and intellectual communities are possible when members do not share identities, backgrounds, commitments, or assumptions. Team-taught by two professors from different disciplinary backgrounds, the seminar proposes that strident disagreement does not preclude dialogue – in fact, these arguments can be valuable resources for learning. Topics addressed include historical formulations of Palestinian and Jewish nationalism and self-determination, competing historiographies of the events of 1948, eliminationism in Zionist and pan-Arab thought, the legacies of violence for moral and political imaginations, theological and ethical relations to the land, and the competing narratives of “indigeneity” and the “right of return” of Palestinians and/or Jews. Joshua Schreier, Kirsten Wesselhoeft.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS